The Sting

I am a lover of nature and natural things.

I always have been from a small child.

My earliest memories are of poking a fishing net enthusiastically into the local pond and extracting a whole load of wildlife from frog spawn and water boatmen to sticklebacks and water snails. At other times I have intentionally run open mouthed through a big cloud of swarming gnats, felt a stringy spiders web on my face and carefully rescued upside down wood lice from their panicky disorientation.

Respectful of other living things I have always tried to avoid squashing or swatting flies and bugs adopting a policy to encourage them to move on somewhere else with a gentle waft of something or directing them towards an open window.

One of my first inventions was a humane mousetrap. This worked on the principle of merely concussing the rodent with a lead leger weight which would drop down upon disturbance of a cork wedged into a wood knot hole in the floorboards in my bedroom from which I had observed a mouse movement. More recently I had great success trapping mice in a bin bag and carefully driving them up the road to be released into an affluent housing area where pickings and overall lifestyle would be enhanced.

I am the first to marvel at the grace and efficiency of a hovering sparrow hawk above the verge of the town by-pass. I seem to be the only motorist to appreciate this behaviour although many do sound their horns as I momentarily lose concentration and veer across the central white lines.

Urban foxes are also a regular sight and I am thrilled to catch the steely, confident glare in the eyes of a lazy fox as it meanders through the alleyways and passages of the city before strolling in front of my car at the traffic lights near Tesco's.

From my living room window I am entertained by the scampering antics of grey squirrels from bough to bough or on the ground as they dodge pedestrians and traffic in a hip hoppity type motion.

A few ducks find their way from the lake in the nearby park into surrounding house gardens and take up a vantage point on the roof of stowed caravans and cars to keep a look out for the many domestic cats who may fancy their chances.

My favourite sound in nature remains the collective noise of a flight of geese as they pass over in a low 'V' formation with co-ordinated honking and the distinctive swish of a great sweep of wings.

The Springtime dawns are noisy in my neighbourhood with birdsong mixed in with traffic and a few emergency services sirens. I have always had an intention to learn to identify birds from their calls but that may have to wait until I have much more time on my hands.

There are plenty of TV programmes about the natural world and I do take in a few of these if they capture my attention. A current series on the monkey world has been fascinating but also quite disturbing. To my mind monkeys are comical characters through their antics and mimickry. I am of that generation brought up to associate our nearest cousins with advertisements for PG Tips or co-stars of Clint Eastwood. I was therefore horrified to learn about the ruthless and murderous mindset of chimpanzees in their ethnic cleansing of other forest monkeys. I will view future re-runs of Planet of the Apes with considerably more understanding of the conflict politics of that species.

Really, we as humans have not progressed much further up the evolutionary scale apart from using weapons rather than bludgeoning our foes with our bare hands or throwing them bodily out of a high tree. We should not therefore be surprised about what nature has to contend with in order to survive amongst increasingly diminishing habitats and the pressure exerted by humankind.

Some commendable efforts are made by a few governments and individuals to save creatures from extinction. On a small scale we can leave food out for birds and hedgehogs.There is no shortage in charitable giving to rescue abused donkeys or dogs and cats. Younger generations seem to be more in tune with Conservation and nature and that can only be a good thing for the future.

I conclude with a topical although tenuous bit of humour in a nature theme which I have hijacked from a radio broadcast.

On a visit to a record shop I spied an old vinyl album entitled "The Wonderful World of Wasps".

The price at 50p excited my curiosity and the sleeve promised a startling and informative soundtrack of this enigmatic and much maligned insect. I hate to see people run in blind panic upon the approach of a wasp which, frankly, only makes the black and yellow creatures even more excitable. Anticipating a very atmospheric experience, perhaps narrated by a gravelly voiced celebrity, I lowered the stylus onto the 33rpm vinyl and sat back, eyes closed to enjoy. I must have quickly dozed off because I was startled by the clunk of the off switch . I could not recall any of the previous output about even the average life of a wasp.

Wholly attentive I played the record again. It was a disappointing offering of a few swishing blades of grass, a faint whirring of wings and a brief rubbing of legs.

Altogether I got the impression of a lazy insect and not the aggressive, dynamic soundtrack that I had expected.

A couple of days later I found my way back to that record shop. I accept that a 50p second or third hand purchase waives most of my consumer rights but I appealed to the proprietor to play the disc and give his opinion.

Granted, he was polite and attentive and duly played the record with headphones on so as not to disturb the one other customer for the day on the premises.

I could see that he had resolved the issue and sure enough he was kind enough to explain that I had been, in fact, playing the B side.